1,000-room hotels to rise inside CJH

By Dexter A. See

BAGUIO CITY -- The Camp John Hay Development Corporation (CJHDevCo) said it is inclined to pursue the putting up several hotels having a total of 1,000 rooms in order to contribute in making the country’s Summer Capital the Convention Center in Northern Luzon.

           

Alfredo Yñiguez, CJHDevCo executive vice president and chief operating officer, said the completion of the 208-room Forest Lodge will augment the 187-room CJH Manor thereby resulting to increased accommodation facilities inside the 247-hectare John Hay Special Economic Zone (JHSEZ).

            

“We are here to stay and we will continue to pursue our plans to make our leased area a world-class tourism center for the sake of uplifting the status of Baguio City as the prime convention center north of Manila,” Yñiguez stressed, citing that after the full completion of its Forest Lodge, CJHDevCo will start the putting up of another 200-room hotel until it will be able to complete its planned 1,000-room hotels inside the leased area.

            

Aside from the putting up of new hotels inside John Hay, Shean Bedi, CJHDevCo senior vice president for marketing, said the developer is also planning to put up a flower garden in an area of around 16,000 square meters which will showcase flowers that are endemic to Baguio city and the Cordillera.

            

Furthermore, Bedi added an eco-theme park will also be established in a 5-hectare area within the forest reservation which is capable of hosting cold weather animals in order to help boost the robust growth of the local tourism industry.

            

Under the 50-year lease agreement signed between the developer and the Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA), CJHDevCo is only allowed to introduce development in an area of not more than 18 hectares considering that the remaining portions of the leased area will be maintained as forested areas.

            

However, Yñiguez revealed that over the past 17 years, the developer was only able to introduce developments in an area of around 4.5 hectares, which is only 25 percent of the allowable area to be developed, because of the continuous breaches of BCDA to their commitments in relation to the delivery of the areas to be developed and the sudden withdrawal of their tax incentives within the special economic zone among other reasons.

            

According to him, CJHDevCo was already able to infuse more than P5 billion worth of development and paid around P1.7 billion in rentals to the government, thus, they will not allow their hard earned investments to go to waste.

            

The CJHDevCo official claimed the volume of development that their corporation has infused in the former American rest and recreation area only shows their liquidity, thus, the developer is capable of sustaining the implementation of more than P5 billion worth of additional development projects to make the facility a world-class tourism center that will attract the influx of more foreign and domestic tourists.

            

CJH has a total land area of more than 686 hectares with only 247 hectares leased by the government for development.

            

He assured city officials and residents that the development of John Hay will continue amidst the challenges that they are currently facing since it is their commitment to abide with the lease agreement they signed in October 1996.